


In Search Of:

by hsmuffintop (elizabethwcu)



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-05
Updated: 2016-05-05
Packaged: 2018-06-06 15:21:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6759382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizabethwcu/pseuds/hsmuffintop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ISO: One roommate to share rent for as long as they can. Gender and age don’t matter. Employed preferable, but not required. Rent is $750/mo, you pay $375. Water, heat, electricity all included. Contact info below.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

You’d been searching for an apartment for the past few weeks, but everything was either nice and too expensive, or in your price range but shitty. You didn’t want to speak too soon, but this ad (in the absolute last paper that you’d looked in) may have been exactly what you’d been looking for this whole time. Underneath the ad was a number to call, “any time between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m.” it said. It’s just past 10 p.m., but you don’t want to start off with this person on the wrong foot, especially since if thing go your way, you’ll be living with them for a while. You make a note to call in the morning before you go to work, then get ready for bed.

* * *

The next morning, you wake up and see the note you left yourself on your fridge to call about the apartment. It’s around 9, so you figure it’s okay to call. You dial the number and it rings a few times. After the fifth ring, you think the person isn’t going to pick up, but they do.

“Hello?” you hear a deep voice ask. The voice has an accent (Australian, maybe?), which you weren’t expecting, but you can deal with.

“Hi, um. I’m calling about the ad you placed for a roommate? Is the room still available?”

“The what? OH! Sorry. My mind’s been so busy these days I’d forgotten about it. Yes, the room. It’s still available. You’re actually the first person to call about it.” You hear shuffling on the other end of the line, then the assumed-to-be-male voice asks, “Can you hold on for a second?”

“Yeah, sure,” you say, and wait a couple of minutes for the voice to come back to the phone. When they do, they apologize for making you wait.

“Sorry about that. Daisy gets fussy when I don’t feed her at exactly the same time every day.” You make a mental note to ask about Daisy, but the voice keeps talking. “My name’s Calum, by the way. I’ve never had a roommate before, so I’m not really sure how to do this. I put the ad out because my mates always say that there’s room enough for another person in my apartment, so I figured that I could get some money out of it and make a friend at the same time. Money’s kind of tight right now for me and Daze, so anything extra we can get is good.”

“Yeah, no, I understand,” you say, and you and Calum talk for a good twenty minutes, you telling him a little about yourself and him doing the same. You plan to meet in person later on that day, after you get off work, and you end the call with mutual “can’t wait to meet you”s.

* * *

After your shift, you drive the short distance to the address Calum had given you that morning, already liking the fact that this place is about three times closer to your job than your current apartment. The complex is in a nice-looking neighborhood, and adding in the fact that Calum sounded like a genuinely nice guy on the phone, this place already has three points in its favor.

You park down the street from the building, walking the short way and up a flight of stairs to get to 206. You knock on the door and wait, but you don’t have to wait long, because the door opens and all you can do is stare. The guy on the other side of the door is wearing nothing but a pair of grey sweatpants and a backwards black snapback, and he’s holding a naked baby on his hip.

“Can I help you?” he asks, and you recognize his voice as the one on the phone that morning. This is Calum.

“I’m here to look at the room you’re renting out? We spoke on the phone this morning? Am I in the right place?” you ask, knowing damn well you’re in the right place. Before the first sentence is out of your mouth, Calum gets a look on his face and smacks himself in the forehead.

“Yes. You’re…yes. I’m sorry. Daisy got into something sticky and I had to give her a bath, but I guess time got away from me. I’m Calum. Please, come in,” he says, moving out of the doorway and opening the door wider, letting you step in. From what you can see of the apartment, it’s a whole lot nicer than any of the others you’ve seen, even the one that you’re currently living in. You also vaguely think that this answers that question about Daisy that you forgot to ask this morning.

You sit on Calum’s couch while he finishes bathing Daisy and puts her down for a nap, then finds himself a shirt. He apologizes again and you assure him that it’s quite alright. If you’re being honest with yourself, you hope that you get to see him shirtless a lot more often, but that’s something to be kept secret.

You and Calum sit and talk for a couple hours about everything that you need to know about each other. You tell him why you’re looking for a new apartment, that the one you’re in is falling apart and it’s cheaper to move entirely than to get everything repaired, and the commute to and from your job each day is draining your wallet because of all of the gas you have to buy. He tells you that he needs help with rent and paying other bills because Daisy’s mother was living with him for a time but, because she was young, decided that she didn’t want to be with Calum and have that responsibility anymore. He tells you that he’d sent her court papers last week trying to get full custody of Daisy, but that went over about as well as he’d expected, which is to say not at all.

Just watching Calum talk about Daisy makes you smile; you can tell that he loves her more than anything and just wants what’s best for her.

He shows you around the apartment after he finishes his rant about Daisy’s mother. He points out things like the bathroom (“we’ll have to share, but it was big enough for two people before, so it shouldn’t be a problem now”) and your bedroom (“it was a guest room before, so it might smell weird, but you can open the window or get a fan or something and I’m sure it will air out”). You love the place, already visualizing how you’re going to set up your bedroom and where your things will go everywhere else.

You’re sitting back on the couch when Calum asks, “Are you any good with kids?”

“Uh, well, I guess so. I wasn’t expecting there to be a kid, not that that’s a problem! Um, I watched my cousin’s daughter for a summer while I was in college, and I had a few babysitting jobs in high school, and I don’t think those kids ended up screwed up too badly.”

Calum laughs at that. “Do you think you’d mind watching Daisy on the weekends? My mates watch her during the week, and I know you have a job, but my weekend hours are weird sometimes and I honestly can’t afford to be paying a babysitter if I don’t need to, you know?”

“Is this your way of telling me that you’re letting me have the room?”

He laughs again. “Yeah, I guess it is. So, would you mind? She’s not too fussy, but I’m probably a little bit biased about her. Just make sure you feed her at the same times every day, which I can write down for you, and change her diaper and give her a bath if she gets messy. She’s not too hard to care for, I promise.”

“Calum, don’t worry about it,” you say, reaching over to place your hand on his. “I’m sure I’ll be fine. Thank you for letting me rent the room. I’m sure we’re going to be great friends, and hopefully even better roommates.” You leave soon after that, Calum writing down a copy of Daisy’s schedule and you both agreeing that you’ll move in this weekend. You walk back to your car and just sit in the driver’s seat for a few minutes, thinking that this is the start of something good.


	2. Two

You hadn’t known at the time that you answered that ad for a roommate that your life would change so drastically after moving in. It’s been five months, but it felt like yesterday that you called the number in the ad and met with Calum and his daughter, Daisy. You’ve made a little place in their lives and you really can’t imagine any place better that you could be in your life right now than living with them.

In the five months you’ve been living there, Calum has gone to court seven times over custody of Daisy, finally getting it settled last week. He now has full custody and gets child support checks from her mother every month. You’d worried that the extra money coming in from child support would make your living there and helping with rent unnecessary, but Calum insisted that you stay, because if you left he’d have to find somebody new to watch Daisy on the weekends, and she likes you.

It’s not often that Calum isn’t home from work before you on weeknights, but you unlock the door and see one of his friends asleep on the couch with Daisy on his chest. There’s a lamp in the way of the boy’s face, but the short blonde hair flopped over his forehead tells you that it’s Luke. You try to stay quiet as you kick your shoes off by the door and hang your bag up, but the jangle of you dropping your keys into the little glass bowl that you’d made Calum put by the door because he was always losing his keys startles Luke awake. He jumps a little and his hands fly up to his chest, quickly looking down to make sure that Daisy is still asleep or at least not falling to the floor. He sighs when he sees that she’s still fast asleep, and he stands up, still holding her to his chest, slowly walking over to you to greet you.

“Where’s Cal?” you ask quietly, knowing that this is Daisy’s nap time and you don’t want to wake her up and have her be cranky later. Calum is usually home by now, so he’s usually the one who’s watching her and making sure that she stays asleep, but Luke got stuck with it today since Calum’s running late.

“I don’t know,” he answers, equally as quiet as you’d asked.

“He’s usually home by now,” you say, and you check your phone to see if he’d texted or called you while you were walking home from work and you just didn’t hear your phone. There’s no new messages or voicemails or missed calls, and you can feel that your forehead is creased with worry. Luke sees it, too, and reassures you that he’s probably just stuck in traffic, nothing terrible has happened. You can tell that he’s worried about his friend, too, and you set about making something for the two of you to eat while you wait, not knowing how long Calum may be and not wanting to starve, setting aside a bottle for Daisy, too, just in case.

Thirty minutes pass. You and Luke eat the Chef Boyardee that you heated up on the stove. You text Calum _I’m home from work. Luke’s still here. Daisy’s asleep but I’m sure she’s gonna want to know where her daddy is when she wakes up. I hope you’re okay, wherever you are. Text me back when you can._

An hour passes. _I don’t know where you are but Luke and I are really worried about you. I gave Daisy her 6:30 bottle. Please l _et one of us know when you’re on the way home.__

An hour and fifteen minutes passes and you’re about to send Calum another text when you hear the front door open. You and Luke both stand up, Daisy even looks toward the direction of the sound from her high chair. You and Luke both relax when Calum walks around the corner, looking perfectly fine.

“Where were you?!” Luke asks, his voice raised louder than you’ve ever heard it. “We were worried sick!”

The anger is contagious because you hear yourself yelling “Yeah! Did you even get my texts? Did you even think about texting back and letting us know that you were okay?!” before you can think about it.

Calum’s eyes are wide and he’s raised his hands up in front of him, a defense gesture. “Whoa, guys. I’m sorry. I got hung up at work and my phone died.”

“Why didn’t you call us?” you ask, stepping closer to Calum, making him hold his hands a little farther from his chest and lean back slightly.

“I don’t know your numbers by heart and I couldn’t look them up in my contacts because my phone was dead! Look, I’m really sorry for making you guys worry. But as you can see, I’m okay, okay?” He looks between the two of you, really hoping that you and Luke stop glaring daggers at him. You back down after a moment, Luke following your lead and relaxing his shoulders.

“Fine, but you better take an extra charger with you to work from now on so it doesn’t happen again.” The words come out of your mouth a little harsher than you mean them to, but you’re already walking out of the kitchen and into your bedroom, closing the door right before the first tear falls.

* * *

A couple weeks later, Calum confronts you about the night he was late coming home. You hadn’t had much time to talk about it since then, both being busy with your jobs and watching Daisy, but tonight is the first night in a long time that it’s just you and him in your apartment. Calum’s parents had come to visit for the weekend, and they wasted no time taking Daisy off of Calum’s hands “because everyone needs a break from their kids sometimes,” as his mom had put it.

You knew that Calum went by a schedule every day - well, Daisy’s schedule - so you didn’t have anything planned for the two of you to do tonight. You’re just flying by the seat of your pants, doing things spur of the moment, not having to worry about drinking too much wine or being too loud and waking up the baby. Calum had put a movie in, but neither of you are paying much attention to it, both absorbed in the conversation you’re having about everything you’ve done in the last few weeks that you might have forgotten to tell each other about.

“So I was working on that big project, did I ever tell you about it? It’s this big thing that’s gonna go out to the whole building once it’s done - yeah, I did tell you about it, because it’s why I had to stay late that one night when you and Luke got so mad at me.” Calum laughs a little and takes a sip of his wine, something that he’d sworn he would never drink when you met him, but he likes it now that you’ve softened him up a little bit.

“Yeah, sorry about that. We were just really worried and you weren’t texting me back and I thought - no, it’s silly.”

“No, go on, tell me.” Calum leans forward from where he’s sitting with his back pressed against the arm of the couch, looking in your eyes and you don’t know if it’s his intense focus or the fact that you’re on your third glass of wine that’s making your cheeks heat up. “Why were you so worried that night?”

“I just,” you start, but you realize that you have no logical explanation as to why you were so worried. Calum’s your friend, yeah, and over the time that you’ve lived with them, you’ve grown to love Calum and Daisy like your own family. You could say that you were worried that something terrible had happened and that Daisy would be left without a father, a hard thing to think about especially with all the fighting he’d had to do to get full custody. Yeah, you could say that, but you know that’s not what it was. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? Sure you do!”

“No, I don’t, Calum. I haven’t thought about it since then and there’s so many things that it _could_  be but it’s none of those. It could be that I was worried about what would happen to Daisy if something terrible had happened to you, or that I was worried about what would happen to me. Would I have to move out? Would Daisy have to go live with her mother? Would it be possible for me or one of the boys to get custody of her? Would I have to find a new best friend? Someone else to love and care for because you’re gone?” You stop at that, realizing what you’d said after the words were already out of your mouth.

Calum is still looking at you with that focused stare, but his eyebrows had raised a little and his forehead was creased. “You love me?”

“That’s the only thing you got out of that?” you ask, playfully rolling your eyes and putting your wine glass on the coffee table. “Of course I love you. We’ve been living together for five months, and I feel like we’ve kind of meshed into our own little family. Not that I’m trying to butt into yours and Daisy’s lives,” you add quickly, not wanting him to get the wrong idea. “I just really like the way it feels to come home and see you and Daisy sitting on the couch or playing on the floor together or you cooking dinner while she bounces in her bouncy seat.” You sigh, running a hand through your hair and crossing your arms over your chest. “I like the thing that we’ve got going here, whatever it is. Living here with you and Daisy makes me happier than I’ve been in a long time, and I care for the both of you so much…I guess that’s why I was so worried when you weren’t home and weren’t answering my texts.”

Calum sits there, the focused look still on his face, but it looks softer now. The silence starts to make you uncomfortable after a minute, but then he speaks.

“I completely understand all of that, and I feel the same way. I love waking up on Saturday mornings to you already up and giving Daisy her morning bottle, and the faces you make when you try to get her to eat baby food.” He smiles at that, which makes you smile, too. “I love how I can come home and not have to worry about if Daisy’s been fed or changed or bathed at all because I know that you’re on top of her schedule, unlike her mother was. I love how sleepy you look some mornings, wrapped up in a sweatshirt or sometimes even your comforter, sitting at the table and eating your breakfast. I love how content you look when you read, and I love how you sing in the shower. I know you think I can’t hear you. I can. And I love it.” Calum smiles even bigger at the appalled look on your face, and you reach out to playfully slap his arm but you freeze in mid-slap because you just realized something.

“You said you love all those things.”

“Yeah, because I do.”

“No,” you say, leaning forward just as he has been the whole time, probably getting your faces too close  to each other but the three glasses of wine in your system says it’s just fine. “You said you love all that stuff about me. I only said I liked the stuff about you but you said you love stuff about me. Do you love me, Calum?” You ask the question quietly, and being so close to his face, you notice the way he licks his lips before he answers, not helping that your gaze flicks down to his lips before going back up to his eyes.

“Yeah, I guess I do,” he says, and you watch as his eyes flick down to your lips, too, then back up to your eyes.

“It’s probably just the wine, but I want to do something,” you say, hoping that Calum’s thinking along the same lines as you are because it’s gonna be super embarrassing if you’re wrong.

“Do it,” Calum says, and you’ve leaned closer together because you can feel his breath on your lips. You don’t have to lean in much farther before your lips are touching, gently, with the smallest amount of pressure before you pull away, your hand over your mouth and your cheeks burning up with flush.

“Why’d you pull away?” he asks, a pout in his voice. “Did you not like it?”

You move your hands away from your mouth, but just enough to speak. “No, Calum. I did like it. I liked it very much. I just don’t know if you liked it and we’re friends and I don’t want to mess up what we have and oh, God, what’s gonna happen with Daisy?! How are we supposed to act around her, she’s gonna know something’s different, and-” Calum reaches out and presses his index finger against your lips, effectively shutting you up.

“Don’t worry about it. I liked it. I’m the one who told you to do it. I wanted it, too. We’ll figure something out. We can be friends who kissed once after confessing their feelings while slightly tipsy, or we can be friends who make out and sleep in the same bed and lend a hand sometimes with, you know, stuff,” he says as he gestures vaguely to his crotch. “Or we could be more than friends…we’ll figure that out. And Daisy’s only nine months old. She’s barely started eating solid food. I doubt she’s gonna notice that now her daddy is kissing the pretty lady that lives with them instead of not kissing her like before. She’s smart, but I don’t think she’s got the brain capacity to do that yet. Or she might know exactly what’s going on and not ask us about it until she’s much older and probably scarred for life.” Calum smiles again, a big one this time that shows off all of his teeth and makes his eyes crinkle up.

“Okay,” you say, taking a deep breath and letting it out. “We’ll figure it out. I do have one question, and then we can talk about something else.”

“Okay.”

“Would you be opposed to going into my room and kissing a little more? I wanna be comfortable if we’re gonna kiss again.” Calum laughs at that, a big, hearty, belly laugh, then takes your face in his hands before giving you a peck on the lips, his smile getting in the way a little bit, but you don’t mind.

“Of course we can do that,” he says, standing up and holding his hand out to help you up. “Anything for the pretty lady.”


End file.
